Outerra Tech Demo Released

Outerra Engine is a unique 3D engine, a world rendering engine capable to seamlessly render whole planets from space down to the ground level. It can use real world data to render the planets realistically, while it also dynamically refines the data using procedural algorithms to provide high ground-level detail.

The engine provides unlimited visibility obstructed only by the planet's curvature, with details ranging from thousands of kilometers down to centimeters. Real time atmospheric rendering, oceans with shore waves

It can integrate vector data overlays for roads, and land class modifications. Uses the JSBSim Flight Dynamics Model library for high fidelity simulation of aircraft, and Bullet physics engine for simulation of vehicle physics. Terrain and fractal algorithms maximally utilize the GPU, leaving the CPU resources for simulation.

This alpha release features:

A complete, real scale planet Earth that can be explored

Created from real elevation data with resolution 90m where available, 1km resolution for oceans; data are dynamically downloaded as you go

Further refined by fractal-based procedural techniques down to centimeter-level details

Vector-based road system that integrates with the procedurally generated terrain

Ability to place static stock objects and drive provided vehicles

The demo comes with the whole planet Earth that can be explored in a free-camera mode or in a 8-wheeler truck. People who like it and/or want to support us and the development of Outerra engine can buy the alpha release of Anteworld at a discounted price ($15), half the amount for the final release.

The full game includes also a plane and a helicopter, and basic sandbox tools that allow you to create roads and runways and place stock objects. A model importer and vehicle configurator that will allow creating custom models and vehicles will be coming soon in an update to the game.

Check out a user created video here:

(PS, we had incorrectly reported this as an official Outerra video, this is not the case and the account and comments are not official Outerra comments.)

X-Plane 10 City Improvements

Many user have expressed bugs and complaints about X-Plane 10's new "plausible city" building engine. Particularly:

Deformed roads (This can be fixed in the 10.05 patch)

Buildings missing from cities (This will be fixed by adding more art assets, and custom handling some of the cities (Article mentions top 100)

Non-existant cities (nothing but green grass), This will be helped when more building assets are added and more ground terrain assets are added.

Everything listed above represents incremental improvement of our cities – more art assets, bug fixes, smarter LOD and rendering settings. But that’s just the beginning. I believe that what we have on our hands is a fairly big fundamental improvement in how cities are handled: we have a way to build cities that provides a huge amount of up-close detail while working from detailed data (and representing that data), and it can run at good fps on today’s hardware.

Down the road I think we’ll be able to integrate and utilize OSM data to get even more detail into our cities and further push the envelope for how much detail, realism and accuracy we can get into cities at a global scale.

﻿﻿﻿MD600-N Modeler Passes Away

Ethan West was a talented 3d modeler and texture artist here. While I did not know him well, I know that some of our members had several discussions going on with him about his work on MD600 class helicopters.

Ethan's wife contacted me this morning to let me know that he lost his 18 month fight with cancer on March 1st (6 days ago). She wanted me to let everyone know that Hovercontrol and the community here brought him comfort during a difficult time.

AVSIM 15th Year Anniversary: What does AVsim mean to you?

US Cities X - Los Angeles Preview

There is probably no city where you see more aviation then Los Angeles. Not only are there several major airports close to the city but general aviation rules the skies over the city. Besides Alaska there is no state where single engine aircraft are more used and there are more helipads then in any other city. That’s not only because of the rich and famous (just see how many helicopters land in Hollywood) but also because the layout of the city looks spectacular. From the coastline to the mountains around the city, LA is a great city to see from above.

US Cities X: Los Angeles will be one of the largest projects in the series and it will be a great place to explore. Development is progressing well as you can see from the images. Stay tuned to this station for more information.